Donation for Medal of Honor Grove planned

Members of Downingtown VFW Post 845 will present $5,000 to the Friends of Medal of Honor Grove today.

The VFW is making the first donation of $5,000 into the Friends organization’s Sponsor A Hero program, a restricted fund that will be used to add the remaining names into the Grove so that all recipients are properly represented.

Downingtown VFW Post 845 members and Commander Miguel Hernandez will present a check to Wally Nunn, Chairman of the Friends of the Medal of Honor Grove, and Medal of Honor Recipient General James E. Livingston.

The 52-acre grove, located at the Freedoms Foundations headquarters near Phoenixville, is the nation’s oldest memorial site dedicated to Medal of Honor recipients. It is divided into one-acre plots for each state, as well as Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. Each plot features an obelisk and metal plaques set in the ground, honoring Medal of Honor recipients dating back to the Civil War.

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The presentation from the nonprofit organization will take place at 3 p.m., at State Senator Andy Dinniman’s West Chester district office.

Dinniman became involved in this project in 2011 because the Grove had fallen into disrepair, and there were questions about its future. He worked to organize a community cleanup of the site that fall, which was attended by more than 1,000 local residents, students, families, veterans and volunteer organizations, including Downingtown VFW Post 845.

As a result of the cleanup, local volunteers and Medal of Honor recipients came together to form The Friends of the Medal of Honor Grove, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the care and maintenance of the site. Since then, the Friends of the Grove group has organized community cleanups of the site, raised funds for its upkeep and taken on a series of improvements, such as the completion of a new asphalt road and the addition of name plaques of Medal of Honor recipients that were damaged or missing.

On May 20 of this year, the names of 35 posthumous Medal of Honor recipients from Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq were officially enshrined in the historic memorial site. According to the Friends of the Grove organization, 180 names have yet to go on obelisks and 395 on ground plaques.

For more information contact Senator Dinniman’s District Office at (610) 692-2112, or e-mail acirucci@pasenate.com.